Friday, August 23, 2013

VoiceBunny : The Good the Bad and the Horribly Horribly Ugly

Hey Everyone,

I'm posting from NYC, in Astoria, during the day, so this isn't so random.

This is a review of Voicebunny which I believe has made a change or two recently that I think really hits home and I suggest everyone read on about this. Here's  a few key points I've noticed about Voicebunny.

Speed: Gotta get in on those auditions fast. If you audition you get paid for the audition itself. It may be a buck or two or 5 bucks. But, you get paid for an audition. The client requests say 10 auditions and as long as you get into the first batch and you follow the specs, you usually get the audition confirmed. NOTE: You need to get the notification that your audition is confirmed and accepted.

What get's your audition accepted?

Here's the key WEIRD thing about Voicebunny. Initially, all my auditions that I somehow managed to get in quickly were almost always accepted. A few times I got rejected because of different reasons. First, I didn't do the audition script TWICE, which was requested. That pissed me off a bit. Other times I was too late in putting the upload in. All totally understandable.

******READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO JOIN VOICEBUNNY*******
As of recently, there was a slough of auditions for a specific guys blog. He wanted it to sound conversational, he wanted it to sound as if you were saying it as if you were thinking it out. I understand that totally. It happens. The script was kind of like a rant. So, I gave it a go.

4 out of 5 of my auditions were rejected, for the reason, "Did not do the specifications necessary for the audition", now here's the rub and the fun part. That one audition that was accepted ended up getting the job. So 5 jobs with the exact same specs on the audition, that I did the exact same way, I got 4 rejections and 1 clean job.

This brings me to the conclusion that, Voicebunny now does what it wants. It doesn't matter whether the specs are correct, they just want to get x amount of auditions and if they think audition doesn't sound great, they reject it. For no good reason.

In turn, I refused the job and cancelled my account with them. I've been getting much more jobs from v123 and voices and these jobs are too cheap for me to waste my time on.


SHOULD YOU JOIN VOICEBUNNY?

If you are a real true beginner, then yes join voicebunny. You will be making very small amounts of money but you will be honing the recording and producing skill. That is very useful.

You also should have voicebunny set up on your desktop every moment you are able to record so that you can jump on auditions. The unfortunate thing about the recent change is that you may not get that $1 for the audition anymore, but it's a free audition so do it.

If you are a seasoned VO artist, DO NOT JOIN VBUNNY. Here are the reasons.

1) INSULTING rates. I literally saw a job that auditioned for 50 cents and the job itself payed less than $2. That is THE MOST insulting thing I have ever seen.  Know that you are worth more than that. Non-union vo is low-paying but THAT SHIT is fucked up.

2) AUDITION payments: A few months ago, a majority of auditions were accepted and as long as you were in, you'd speed through and make few bucks on the audition. Now, they reject for no particular reason, they don't specify if you email them. BELIEVE ME I know. You're going to find yourself fighting for 4 dollar principles. Which is a rage growing pain!

3) EXPECTATIONS OF SPEED AND QUALITY for CHEAP!! You are going to be asked to do jobs within hours, that is something I have never had to do with Voices or V123 and I PAY THEM! This expectation that you owe them that kind of speed for literally no money, is ridiculous.

4) Literally NO SUPPORT that is worth anything. I cancelled my account, they basically said that if I cancel my account I would not get paid for my previous auditions because it took a month to get the money. That's the type of company that is. Imagine if you quit a job and they say, "Oh you won't get paid this weeks check, because you're leaving now."  That's Voicebunny for ya!

My Viewpoint:

It took a lot of crap for me to build up this hatred, however, I did do a fair amount of work with Voicebunny, I did multiple tutorials and commercialish stuff. It was on the low end but it was good. I thought of it as , "Hey, money is money. I need it."

Voicebunny was always on the edge of a good idea. But, never as concrete of a decision as Voice123 or Voices. The moment I got 4 rejections on auditions, it was pretty shocking. I do to many jobs in VO to have this happen. Anyways, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.








20 comments:

  1. Your review really helped me a lot. I found it to be fair and you hit upon some points that I was pondering. One point being that the pay is so low and the other is that we have to be jumping on these assignments like a "bunny" (pun intended). I'm new to the voice over industry and I just don't want to be tied up like that. Thank you for your review.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They seem to reject for reasons such as "noise" in the audio files where none exists. I have been a broadcast voice over artist for years and never had any issues with quality. My studio is broadcast quality with a sound proof studio. I submitted an audition that was rejected, then listened to by another party, who accepted it and said it was rejected in error, I did another audition and was rejected again for "noise". I took the file to an audio engineer who told me the file was perfect, and he did not have a clue what Voice Bunny was hearing. Customer service is lacking, one hand doesn't know what the other one is doing. My advice is to avoid frustration and stay away from them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I believe Marni was reading my mind...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I dunno man, I just hold my own rates there and usually one or two times a month, I'll have a client book me based off my samples. Just today I worked on a project for $217 for a 3 minute reading.

    The 'staff' there may not be up-to-speed when it comes to knowing the ins and the outs of voice over. And a lot of them probably don't even know what their listening to. but there are some good clients that roll through there every once and awhile and they pay me great. I would never toss any form of marketing out the window.. and Voice Bunny IS.. in general. A tool for work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. More power to you, Jonathan. Happy it's working out for you. I wouldn't mind leaving my profile up for the occasional job in which a client finds me, but I wouldn't use it for the Audition to get jobs function. It's really lack-luster there. Admittedly, this blog was like 3 years ago, so hopefully, things have changed. Maybe I'll rejoin and take a look. :)

      Delete
  5. Im a Veteran voice over announcer, I was a dj for years. I have an unusual voice, I get voicerovers about once a month and am a graphic artist. I joined voiceBunny a couple of years ago and got several auditions, then nothing. I checked and discovered my account was dark. had them turn it back on and started getting back up requests at 3am. I applied to their logo bunny service and was rejected. Ok. Today I decided to kill the VB account and discovered not only that I could not kill the account, I couldn't shut off email. I went on live chat and when I asked to kill the account the chat went dead. So I went in and changed my profile to a complaint, removed my clips and changed the email.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Justin, I am new to voice over and when I take a look at the VB site it looks as if they are only interested in seasoned VO artist. Should I still take a chance to join?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Justin, I am new to voice over and when I take a look at the VB site it looks as if they are only interested in seasoned VO artist. Should I still take a chance to join?

    ReplyDelete
  8. VB is a good starting ground, you just have to get past the initial audio sample requisite. When I was a member, it was entirely free. If that's the case, then it doesn't hurt to give it a shot. Don't pay anything though.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I've been with Voice Bunny for about 18 months. And yes, in the beginning it was difficult - I was doing auditions for next to nothing. But as a seasoned voice actor with national credits, I got tired of the auditions and now do only straight VoiceBunny bookings. Funny thing is I started getting bookings with no audition. Keep in mind you set your own rates - you do not have to work for cheap. Most of my income does not come from VB, but I find it a good, easy-to-manage add-on. For what that's worth, that's my experience.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Awesome Capn! I would never begrudge any VO success. It's really great that it worked out for you. I may check it out again. The last time I tried, they had this weird audio checker which didn't like my audio which is insane. My setup has been used on tv, radio, and film everywhere. Voicebunny is Voice123's smaller site and I've had some real issues with V123 in the past. I, personally, love auditioning. I want to be able to gain new repeat clients. I felt slighted by their customer service and their inability to screen clients. If that's changed, AWESOME! I don't think I'm at the point to trust them, plus I think their audio checker is basing it's quality on nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi and Yes! Couple years ago. I paid about $ 200 for subscription of one year in voice 123 and somebody told me there that I need to be patient to get a project. But unfortunately I didn't get any job or project in those two years. I am professional since 1982 with a lot of projects in many fields and great companies or marketing agencies. I totally can say that voice 123 is a completely lie with many amateurs that never will complain because they become slaves of this low quality site.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Totally understand. If it doesn't work, don't do it. Not worth the effort at all. I have gotten a few really good clients from v123 and the subscription has always paid for itself and more, so I can vouch that it's not a total scam. But, by not escrowing the funds they have no reason make sure jobs both exist or go through. My recommendation, if you choose the p2p route, which some do (mostly people with no marketing experience or business experience including me) , Voice123 is at the bottom of the list. I'd only join it if you're successful on other sites.

      Delete
  12. So, here's a little inside skinny for y'all (courtesy of a former employee) which may come as a surprise but also explain a lot about how Voice Bunny operates. The review staff at VB have quotas. Not just for accepting auditions... but rejecting them as well. If you don't say "no" often enough you come under review for not being critical enough. Hence, perfectly fine auditions being sh1t-canned for no good reason. Charlatans.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Voicebunny is so inconsistent I have had reads rejected for quality and then sent the same file back and it will pass. this place is not good for anyone trying to get a real feel for voiceover. They pay you 10 buck for a 400 word job and take the rest I would recommend putting some money out for voice.com and skip voices 123 as the are the same company as voice bunny They work out of a house in columbia and half the time the only way to get a job is with strong demos and they will still reject studio quality work I know this first hand as I am a engineer/ voice actor voice bunny is trash

    ReplyDelete
  14. I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY. To add: their quality check team is very inconsistent and really doesn't know much about client expectation or audio quality. They have held up deliveries from me in the past because of some erroneous cause. "this word sounds off"
    How does it sound off? I can't ask them to clarify because they only allow "one way" communication.

    I am a professional audio producer in the industry working for marketing campaigns as well, and part of my job is advising voice talents on how to sound studio quality, while also being a voice talent myself. I truly know what good quality recordings expectations are. I can't tell you how many times I have had to revert back to deliver to the client my original recording before Voicebunny asked to revise. I believe their Voicebunny quality team are inexperienced audio novices.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I haven’t any word to appreciate this post.....Really i am impressed from this post....the person who create this post it was a great human..thanks for shared this with us. voice over artist

    ReplyDelete